A two-year study under way in Manitoba will tell the province’s beef producers more about how cattle diseases affect their bottom lines.
Terry Whiting, a Manitoba Agriculture disease control specialist, wants to learn more about the prevalence and economic consequences of four diseases that can hamper production in beef herds. The diseases are bovine virus diarrhea, neospora, Johne’s disease, and enzootic bovine leucosis.
Whiting is heading a study funded by the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association and the province’s Agricultural Research Development Initiative.
The information gathered should help producers with management decisions related to herd health.
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BVD affects cattle herds across Western Canada and around the world. It is a “wickedly infectious” disease, said Whiting, which can have serious consequences for a beef herd.
BVD adds to the risk of abortion and weak calves. By suppressing the immune system, it also leaves cattle more vulnerable to other health problems.
By learning more about the disease in Manitoba, Whiting hopes to demonstrate to producers the cost effectiveness of putting a BVD control program into their herds.
“I think it’s the most serious disease affecting beef production in Canada.”
Neospora is a parasite that causes repeated abortions or stillbirths in cattle. Infected cows are six times as likely to abort as healthy cows. There’s an 80 percent likelihood that infected cows will pass the parasite to their calves.
Preliminary survey results have put the incidence of neospora in Manitoba beef herds at nine percent.
In calves, the disease can mean poorer weight gains, greater treatment costs and smaller slaughter weights. A Texas study calculated that those effects can translate into a $16 (US) loss in production per infected calf.
Johne’s disease is an infectious diarrhea in cattle. At its worst, it can colonize a cow’s stomach and cause the animal to die from wasting. In dairy herds, it is a major cause of poor milk production and early culling.
The disease has other implications.
Whiting said some scientists suspect it is linked to Crohn’s disease in humans, which means it could become a human health issue.
Whiting thinks Canada will eventually have to be able to certify exports of Canadian beef cattle as Johne’s-free. Some countries are trying to eradicate the disease.
Enzootic bovine leucosis causes cancer in older cattle and is a trade-limiting disease.
It can be transmitted in blood, creating some risk if the same needle is used repeatedly to vaccinate cattle or if the same knife is used repeatedly to castrate bulls.
Cattle have to test negative for EBL before they can be exported live to the European Union, or before they can be accepted into semen collection centres, Whiting said.
It is believed less than one percent of beef cows in Canada have EBL.
